Detroit: City Of Hope - Forbes.com

"Right now, it's all about survival," says Dave Bing, the mayor of Detroit. Bing knows a thing or two about survival—and about resurrection. Still slim at 67, Bing leans forward in his office chair at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in the broken heart of downtown. In a soft-spoken but fiercely candid way, he talks about the city's seemingly insurmountable problems—high crime and unemployment, miserable schools, government cronyism, urban blight, a continuing brain drain, relentless pushback against painful cuts and, above all, the debt, the mountainous debt. "It's a very big hole to dig out of," he says. But he is stubbornly hopeful, too. "I believe this city has a future—otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing, because it's a thankless job."
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